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| Hotfix on the way |
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| First and foremost we hope you are enjoying the mod and we are Very happy to see the comments in our forums, we couldn’t do it without the support of you guys!
Secondly As you are most likely aware the Team are currently slaving away working on a hot fix that should clear up a number of issues release one is experiencing.
We believe we have fixed many of the problems with crashing to desktop, and performance, as well as memory leaks and server crashes. We have also added in some changes based on community feedback, with regards to the maps/weapons, as well as fixing some cosmetic issues e.g. floating buildings on Mos espa.
We are currently Advising server admins to keep endor out of the server rotation as that map is the worst effected in terms of memory leaks and CTD’s.
We hope to have the hot fix out before the weekend is out, but that is entirely dependent on how our testing goes. If all goes well it could be with you as early as Sunday/Monday, if more extensive testing is required it may be next week sometime.
All we can ask you to do is please to bare with us as we are working as hard and fast as possible to bring this hot fix to you guys, and please visit our forums ( http://www.fsmod.com/fsforums/) to tell us all the problems you have encountered or offer suggestions on how to improve the mod, constructive criticism is always welcome, and we shall see what we can do in order to rectify the situation.
Please stay tuned for further updates.
We now have our user manuals online located here:
Rebel Manual
Imperial Manual
We also have a Client, and Server Support forum that contains possible fix’s and solutions for errors users may be experiencing, located here:
Client Support Forum
Server Support Forum
Preach
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| Do Believe The Hype! |
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| Ok Troopers lets see what your made of! Some of the FirstStrike Team and Testers will be on one of the fantastic Hypernia Servers tonite, so nows your chance to prove your worth.
Hypernia have been instrumental in providing the FirstStrike team with the Development servers we needed to get the mod off the ground.
So if you fancy stopping by and try your hand at vibroknifing us (if ya can that is) go for it, bring it on !
Then why not post a few screenies on our forums showing your kill skillz | |
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| Begun this Mod War has… |
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Polish those blasters, power up your converters, engage thrusters.
The time has come, and at last First Strike Release 1 is here. True to our word on the 28th of September 2007 at the stroke of midnight you can now begin downloading the fruit of all our labour. The First Strike Mod Team do hope you enjoy our first release, we’ve all had a lot of fun working on it, and are desperate to see the public’s reaction to our baby as it takes it’s first steps into the world.
And remember this is only Release One, Release Two will have even more content for you to play with, but we’ll let you get your teeth into this first before we start talking about that.
So get downloading and get on the intergalactic battlefield and we’ll see you out there.
And don’t be shy, once you’ve played get on the forums and let us know what you thought of it. We’re dying to know.
All the best,
The First Strike Mod Team
Now here's where you can download First Strike.
CLIENT:
MD5: 87ac2554927fd054106e20aa2f404567 FirstStrikeR1Install.exe
FileFront
BiTT News
Fileplanet
BF-Games
BF-Basis
Gamershell
eXp
BF-News.de
Battefield-2142.org
Torrent:
GameUpdates.org
SERVER:.
MD5: 4dc586d7b07556d0a0e954d6c42e04ae firststrike_r1_dedicatedserver.zip
FileFront
BiTT News
Fileplaent
BF-Games
BF-Basis
Gamershell
eXp
BF-News.de
Battefield-2142.org
Torrent:
GameUpdates.org
If you're having speed problems, try the torrent, it's FAST!
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| A THANKYOU FROM THE TEAM |
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| On behalf of the Team we would like to thank our Sponsors, www.hypernia.net and www.4u-servers.co.uk of which we would not be able to create this conversion for you. They have been extremly professional and invaluable in the services they have offered the FirstStrike Development Team.
We would also like to thank our Testers who have provided the team with many headaches and remedies during the testing stages and im sure many more to come.
Finally and by no means last we would like to thank Blitz who has endured countless sleepless nights, many many hours of coding, modelling, texturing, tweaking and spreedsheet filing not to mention compiling or harrassing RedMonkey for tree cols. If it werent for your honesty, mild mannered ways and intuitive thinking we would have gone down the pan ages ago.
Thanks BLITZ your one in a million!
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| DEV DIARY #18 - TALON |
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| Hello there,
My name is Harold Withers, or as I'm known around these here parts, TALON. And to misquote a famous Megacity Judge, on First Strike "I am the Lore!"
Heh, well that's not exactly true. My primary role here is to work on maintaining the lore accuracy of the mod, yes. But I think every single member of the team here has a great deal of ownership in regards to the lore accuracy of this mod that we're working very hard to get into your hands. Even before I came onboard with this project towards the end of last year I was already very impressed with the accuracy of what I'd seen so far of the mod. The guys had gone to extreme lengths to bring you an as immersive Star Wars gaming experience as humanly possible, and with a universe as rich as Star Wars that lies in the details.
My first job here was to collect as much material as possible on the movies (though when time permits, my games industry background gets the better of me and I can't resist getting my hands dirty, and build a few models when I can), reference images, screenshots, blueprints, technical specifications, you name it, we've got it. Everyone scours the net, and their personal stash of memorabilia (I've been a Star Wars nut since the age of 4, I'm now 34, so you can imagine the size of that stash) for anything we can find. I think we must have the most complete collection of Star Wars reference material outside the Lucasfilm Archives as we have really strived to get every last little detail we can correct. This material is then given to the respective artist/designer to use in the production of game assets be they characters, vehicles, weapons or environments.
One aspect of this which will present itself to you as soon as you first experience the game, being a first person shooter, is of course the weapons you will get to use. We have searched high and low to bring you the most complete and accurate Star Wars weapons load out ever seen in a Star Wars game. and these will primarily be weapons seen in the movies themselves. We have all the classics, the Stormtrooper's E-11, the Rebel Alliance's A-280 and DH-17, and even Han Solo's infamous DL-44 blaster weapons, but there will also be a few little gems in the mix, blink and you'll miss them in the movies, but they're all here in game fully fleshed out loaded and ready for you to use, for the first time in any Star Wars game I'll wager.
 
 
The accuracy of our environments is also a very important aspect of our mod. I still remember the buzz I felt the first time we had our first Star Wars map in game (up to that point we had been playing with Star Wars characters with Star Wars weapons, but running around in BF2142 environments) and it instantly felt so much better, like, 'Now THIS is Star Wars!' A lot of work has gone into these maps, in achieving just the right look and feel. Mos Espa is a great looking map which really captures the essence of a Tatooine town, it's buildings are all accurately taken from reference from both Mos Espa, and a touch of Mos Eisley to bring it up to the Galactic Civil War time period, there are nice touches like market stalls, and even Ronto and Bantha tracks in the streets. And the game design behind the layout is going to produce some really exciting battles once you guys get a hold of it. Other land maps to follow will explore the other interesting and diverse locales of the Star Wars universe with just as much attention to detail.
Another critical element of our game to get right are the vehicles. Nailing that signature look and feel of a Star Wars space battle has been paramount. The lighting of the ships, the look of the laser bolts, explosions, engine glows, cockpits. All these details when done correctly add up to an unbeatable Star Wars gaming experience. Another thing is scale. We have managed to get capital ships in game with little or no sacrifice to lore accurate scale, so when you fly by a cruiser in your starfighter it's as big as it should be and then some.
 
But what should be noted is that lore isn't the be all and end all with this game. Being a game, it is the gameplay that is king, so there is this give and take between gameplay and lore accuracy, and sometimes sacrifices have to be made, but that said, I'm proud to say that there will be no cheap tricks to level the playing field in this mod. No giving TIE Fighters shields and missiles to make them the equal of their Rebel counterparts. Balancing is achieved by utilising lore accurate information. Sure TIEs have no shields, but they're faster and harder to hit. Lore accuracy and gameplay working in near total harmony. Trust me, as a TIE Pilot in this game you'll not be missing those shields or missiles as you light up some more Rebel Scum with your highly accurate twin laser cannons.
Well I think I've waffled on for long enough, so there's nothing left to say for now apart from that I hope you enjoy playing our mod later this week, and that I'll see you out there on the Battlefield.
All the best,
TALON
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| ...Coming to a Galaxy near you! |
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| Yes, it's time for the news you've all been waiting for. The endless speculation can now come to an end as we the First Strike Mod Team can finally reveal to you the date on which you the public will be able to get a taste of the First Strike experience with Version 1.0.
And yes, it will be released this month, and yes, this year.
The official release date is Friday the 28th of September.
Mark that date in your datapads people, not long to go now.
So to celebrate this announcement and get you in the mood for a little hot blaster action, allow me to reveal to you the final chapter in Woody's Withering Fire gameplay articles.
Withering Fire
Part 3:
Combat
Ok, so the standard game of battlefield 2 or 2142. You jump in the game. Your next few moments are most likely spent sprinting to a flag, killing one or two people on the way, then capturing the flag. You then get up to another person, die, spawn, and repeat. Each combat involves no more than a few people at a time, and the end objective is usually best met by sneaking in to the places that have the least defence.
This is all very well and good to win conquest games, but all it results in is a bunch of tiny skirmishes across the map. We are aiming to change that in FirstStrike. Part of the whole concept of our mod is for the players to take part in an actual battlefield. That is, we want to encourage actual battles. You know, large scale affairs with intense firefights, squads pushing against one another, walkers stomping through the middle, ground being fought over and defended, and blaster fire coming through the mist or clouds. Lots of blaster fire.
To that end we've embraced gameplay that encourages actual combat and engagement. the first step was withering fire. By having multiple people needed to take down a target that automatically centres battles on large obvious targets like vehicles. The focus on support classes and defensive gear also makes group-centric combat more of a reality. The team that keeps itself protected and alive stands a far better chance than individuals who just run around rambo'ing it up.
Another area in which we have focused is the radar. We've taken the UAV ability from the commander and instead have distributed it amongst the players. Various different infantry now have the power to deploy different UAV devices (droids, beacons, portable scanners). This has had the effect of bringing players more directly into combat. Instead of capping the flag by sneaking around, the players are now more encouraged to seek out and kill the enemy before moving on a position. It also makes it important to scout out an area rather than running blindly into it, because chances are the defenders will have planted sensor beacons and thus will see you before you see them.
And, finally, the maps themselves are also being constructed to encourage areas of focus for the players. Objectivemode maps are the basis of most of our designs, where players need to defend or destroy (or both) objectives on the map in order to win. Objectives traditionally provide for more interesting gameplay as they give a clear goal for the players to go for and a sense of achievement when they are destroyed. They also make more sense to defend than flag points and thus you'll find people playing defense more than in conquest mode.
Of course, the large-scale battles are only part of the end goal. The other half is to provide a large array of challenges to the player. We want everything to be diverse so they have many different areas to branch off into. Each kit has its own uses and usefulness, and it'll take quite a while for players to explore them all and figure out the best use for the gear.
The same goes with the weapons. Each weapon handles differently and has varying levels of usefulness based on the differing situations. Figuring out where to use a certain weapon and/or gear gives players a chance to become specialists in multitude of ways. This is compared to the standard 5-6 single "one-shot use" classes that are easily mastered; as they have only one or two roles and that's it. Indeed, here's a list of the current "jobs" we have within our kit setup:
1) recon
2) shock assault
3) sniper
4) standard infantry
5) fire support
6) bunker buster
7) anti-vehicle expert
8) defence specialist
9) support/resupply
10) Objective destroyer
11) demolitions expert
12) medic
13) biological warfare expert
14) heavy weapon deployer
15) sensor support
16) squad leader
17) Force commander
And this doesn't include our vehicles at all, which also play a part in this:
18) repulsorlift pilot
19) turret controller
20) droid operator
21) fighter pilot
22) Bomber pilot
23) starship captain
24) walker commander
25) Deathstar Operator (just kidding!)
With ours, just because you choose one class doesn't mean you only do one thing. You could say that each class can be used multiple different ways. But it is important to note that the cumulative effect of those various skills are focused so no person can do everything. Thus we are able to create an interdependency between the classes, yet at the same time give a much wider gameplay experience to the player regardless of the class they choose.
But in case this seems overwhelming, fear not. Our underlying design is for everything to be "simple to use, challenging to master." If you just want to get in to the fight then picking a standard rifle and assault kit will let you get right in to the action. From there you can start exploring all the different aspects of the mod. The transition from apprentice to master takes a little time, and with any luck it'll make the mod more interesting as there are plenty of different ways to play it.
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| First Strike Interview with German EACT |
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| The following is the transcript from an interview that The German EA Community Team had with members of the First Strike development team, and details on how to enter a First Strike Release Competition.
Read on to find out more.
You thought there was nothing to do, but wait for the release of First Strike? Stick with us and join the big First Strike Release competition, presented by the FS Mod Team and BF-News.de! Guess what the release size of the client (in megabytes) will be and win one of five download-versions of BF2142. In addition, eight copies of the boosterpack Northern Strike (download) will be raffled!
You have no idea, how big this client could be? Then read through our interview! We sat down with the devs and pulled out every bit of information, we could get: Fighters, maps, history, gamemodes and much more was discussed and some of the information might surprise you. Will we meet at the Death Star? Read through and find out!
A big thanks to the following devs:
• Blitz (Mod Leader)
•xEROhOUR (Press / Recruiting)
• Havoc (Modelling)
• Svenstaro (Modelling)
• Rybot (Skinning)
• Pumbaa (Skinning)
• Woodrow (Coding)
• Dutch (Research)
If you want to take part in the competition, just write an email to news[at]bf-news.de. The email subject hast to be: First Strike.
Include the following:
1. Your guess of the client-size (like: XXXX,XX MB)
2. Your email-address
3. Your F7C ID (register here: http://www.foren.f7c-network.com/boards/register.php-> login here: http://www.bf-news.de/f7c_login.php-> After logged in, you'll find your "ID" printed next to the Header named "Kontrollzentrum".)
Note: If you can't register at F7C-network (because of the language difficulties), then please include a link to your First-Strike Forum profile! Either this or the F7C ID is required!
4. Your choice (not a must): Your BF2 or BF2142 soldier name
The competition will last until First Strike is released.
All members of the First-Strike Team (including Beta- and Alpha testers) and everyone working for F7c-network.com or the FS Mod Page are not allowed to take part in the competition!
- Prologue -
A bit of history: Where did First Strike Start?
*xEROhOUR: *First Strike started way back in August 2005 a handful of guys had an idea, sadly since then most of them have gone leaving myself and Dutch Razor as being from the original team.
Since then Blitz joined our current Mod Leader and the original Galactic Conquest crew ex Shattered Faith, and some incredibly talented guys (they know who they are and if I listed them all we would be here for weeks! Its the most talented, pro active, and "out of the box" thinking team that has made this mod what it is. It really is a team effort.
The expectations towards the mod are very high. Some fans from BF2 ponder whether to get BF2142 only for First Strike. What do you think about this?
*xEROhOUR: *I would say 2142 lends itself very well indeed to the Star Wars format. In FS you get two games for your money Space and Land combat so with the addition of 2142 that’s 3 kickass games for one price, can’t be bad, can it?
Why exactly a Star Wars mod?
*xEROhOUR: *We felt that there was a real need to pick up where SWBF and the X-Wing series left off, with the tried and trusted concept of DICE's Battlefield Series and the advent of the 2142 Engine it provided an excellent opportunity to create and deliver a real Multiplayer SW experience.
Which episodes will First Strike feature?
*Havoc: *First Strike will Feature the Original trilogy Era so that’s episode 4, 5 and 6. This choice was made mainly due to the fact that these are our favourite episodes. and portray the star wars universe in the best possible way.
- General information and background -
Will it also include content from episodes 1-3? Some other mods like Clone Wars already tried it but obviously aren't in development anymore.
*Havoc: *Right now we don’t have any plans to expand into the prequel trilogy, apart from several of its locations. but who knows what the future might bring.
Do you have any kind of problems with Lucas Arts because of the Star Wars license?
*xEROhOUR: *We have been very careful in not to evoke the holy ones wrath (Mr G Lucas) by sticking to core acceptable usage policies.
How precisely is First Strike imitating the role model (spacecraft, sounds, characters and scenes?)
*Havoc: *We want to portray the Star Wars universe in the most accurate way possible. And we have our own separate lore department that digs up reference images for us. Also their movie clips have been key in our animation process. as well as their sound references.
Does the solid source material make it any easier/harder for you to please the fans?
*Havoc: *it does, in fact we find it very hard sometimes to please ourselves. Several of our team members are big Star Wars fans. And can often make quite a fuss when something isn’t completely lore accurate. How ever we do have a Main Rule that states that gameplay is more important than lore.
- Game questions: heroes and playgrounds -
Does it include any known heroes or their vehicles? Which ones can we expect to see?
*Havoc: *we will include some iconic vehicles from the movies how ever due to Lucasarts' Modding guidelines we aren’t allowed to use any iconic character from the movies.
The following hero vehicles are planned: Luke’s Landspeeder, the Millennium Falcon and Darth Vader’s TIE.
Does the mod pursue any background story or do the maps loosely follow the movie?
*rybot: *We have a few maps the follow the events of the movie and also a few unique scenarios as well. For example, on the space map 'Escape from Hoth' we followed the storyline of the movie while also expanding beyond the events seen on film. The objective of the map is to escort the Gallofree Transports past the crippled Star Destroyer and to a hyperspace beacon, while also being attacked by TIE fighters and bombers.
Which scenes/maps are going to see?
*Svenstaro: *There are those that many of you have seen already, Hoth Space, Mos Espa, Endor and some of you know that we're also working on the Death Star. Additionally to those mentioned there might be a few surprises.
Will we be able to participate in space battles like in the trailer? What's so exciting about it? Many doubt it will work well.
*Dutch: *Oh yes you will be, A-Wings, X-Wings, Y-Wings, TIE Fighters/bombers/interceptors and B-Wings, it'll all be here. Depending on their appearance being lore accurate of course once you get in-game, see the HUD, hear the classic sound of an X-Wing, spot a TIE , get behind it, you'll feel the movie.
*Havoc: *players will be able to pilot rebel and imperial capitol ships and fighters in a full 3D space environment, The most exiting thing about it is that these ships are to correct scale. So a Corellian Corvette will be 150 meters long, a Lancer Frigate will be 200 meters long, and a Star Destroyer, yes a full blown Star Destroyer will be its full length of 1.6 kilometres
Isn't this a bit of a problem to have a 1.6 km STD on a map?
No, this has only been an initial problem. At the moment, we solved this quite well.
- Tech and space battles -
Now that we're already talking about space maps, there are quite a few things in the BF2142 engine that make one wonder. Will there really be no gravity in space? So that when you exit you vehicle you don't hit the ground?
*Svenstaro: *You can't exit your vehicle, at least not as of the current state. But there will be no gravity indeed.
Will it even be possible to eject from your spacecraft? Will we be able to enter and capture capital ships?
*Svenstaro: *No, we sadly had to scrap the ejecting/capturing part when we got to know that it just wouldn't be feasible on the BF2142 engine. You know what happens when the Titan moves, right? Low FPS for everyone, high server load, glitches. We might add it in later when we have found a way.
Will spacecraft automatically be slowed down if you stop accelerating?
*Svenstaro: *Yes, we do not use Newtonian physics since those are also not obvious in the movies and we also would like to keep the arcade style aspect of dog fighting.
How big will the space and ground maps be in comparison to the original BF2142 maps?
*Havoc: *we are able to generate maps that are 8x8x20 kilometres though not all of our maps will be this size cause it'll take a while to fly to the other end. How ever we do tend to make the maps big enough so that you won’t fly out of bounds accidentally. And seeing as our maps can also be 20km high it creates the illusion that were in Full 3D space. However, back in testing you were able to jump out of your X-Wing in mid air and it took about 5 minutes for a player to reach the ground.
Are there changes to the radar/hud so a fighter pilot can get to know if an enemy is beyond or above his spacecraft?
All fighters will get a small radar and an enhanced HUD, which marks all enemies in direct sight with brackets. A display, which shows the vertical axis is not planned, as far as I know. But this will go according to the testing experience and what we receive from the testers.
Do you expect orientation problems occurring with the players in this 3D-spacefights?
We didn't have those problems, because you can catch sight of the horizon very easily. The rest, you'll get to know in-game.
- Gamemodes and vehicle overview -
Which kinds of maps does First Strike focus on?
*Pumbaa: *First Strike is not really focused on any special kind of maps (e.g. only CQB maps or only space maps) we simply decided that heck, we want to do it all since we can and deliver to the player an experience of what the regular pilot/grunt felt and went through during the famous battles seen in the movies (so expect some serious traumas). We've had separate teams for separate maps so far, one team creating Hoth Space, one team creating Mos Espa so on and so forth. So as you probably already know, expect to see a lot of everything.
Which game modes will First Strike feature? Conquest seems inappropriate for space at least. Are we going to see the original Death Star gamemode?
*Blitz: *Our intention is to create gamemodes that are unique but still familiar to the BF player as it can be frustrating to have to learn a new gamemode every time a new game comes out. We currently have push, area conquest, objective, and escort style gamemodes. Area conquest will be a mix of supply-lines and conquest, where you will have to take the flags in a given order.
We are also introducing a new concept called Fleet Combat, where in space your goal is to protect your fleet while destroying the enemy’s fleet. I can tell you, it is very fun! To address the Death Star gamemode, we have set it up as an objective style that will mimic the course of events from the movie Episode 4: A New Hope
Can you already provide us a rough list of vehicles that will be pilotable? Will we be able to drive AT-AT/AT-ST or the mighty ISD?
*Woodrow: *AT-ST, Landpseeder, Speederbike, Probe droid, A-Wing, X-Wing, Y-Wing, B-Wing, TIE Fighter, TIE Bomber, TIE Interceptor, Gallofree, Bulk Freighter, Corvette, Lancer, Nebulon-B, Carrack, and that doesn't include stationary and deployable turrets.
*rybot: *unfortunately, we don't have a pilotable ISD at this time. It was pilotable for some internal testing and we discovered some problems that we have yet to work around. We will continue to work on it, but don't expect them to be flying around the map in the first release.
- System requirements, ranking, unlocks -
What are the special highlights of First Strike? How are you going to get people to download the game to their hard drives?
*Woodrow: *Our mod will encompass a full Star Wars Battlefield Environment. We have focused on creating the largest scale playing field within the limited 32/64 player arena. Scale is something we've tackled head on and every player will have the option of playing anything, from the basic Stormtrooper to the captain of a capital ship directing his crew in massive fleet engagements.
Our gameplay goals and ideals are to push ease of teamplay and playability, whilst simultaneously providing a large number of different tests and challenges of a player's skill. Our customization and kit layout system was created to provide for dynamic game balancing, where the player chooses the weapon to fit his play style and mission rather than us choosing the kits and limiting them to it. And, of course, we're shooting for the most graphical and immersive Star Wars battlefield experience out there today.
A dynamic "customization and kit-layout system" - that sounds very interesting. What's the point about that?
This is mainly BF2142 standard-style - but everything is unlocked already.
Will there be a First Strike Mod-Ranking introduced? Maybe with an own set of unique unlocks?
This has been the original plan. But this would have been a lot of work and we decided, that it is more important, to get the game public. Afterwards, we can take care of our secondary goals.
What about the system requirements hardware-wise?
*Svenstaro: *If you compare it with BF2142 Titan Mode: Much lower, expect 3-4 times more frames than when playing Titan Mode while on Titan. If you compare it with normal BF2142 Conquest it should still be less depending on map. There have been rumours that you need a killer machine in order to be able to play space maps and I can tell you that it's the exact opposite. There's no geometry to render and as long as there aren't 6 capital ships + fighters in your vicinity there should be no problems at all. An exception here might be Death Star since we tried to keep real close to the detail of the original but we're still testing it and so far performance has been very good.
- Epilogue -
In what time frame can we expect the first release candidate?
*rybot: *We have a date set for September... yes, of this year. Although we cannot say what the exact date will be, we will keep everyone updated when more information becomes available.
Your message to the waiting fans?
*xEROhOUR: *Remember this is a mod created by a non paid team who have really tried to deliver this conversion as professionally as possible for you in their spare time. We are still developing it so come release, just bare in mind we still have a long way to go to get it to the level we and more importantly YOU want. We hope you enjoy it.
 
 
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Closed Alpha Test & Deth..
